USS Sagittarius

I will start off by saying that this is by far and away my most favorite designs that I've ever made. I felt like it was so off-the-wall that it deserved its own topic.

Originally designed to serve alongside the USS Sovereign among others, the USS Sagittarius was built as a testbed ship of new technologies. Most prevalent is its purportedly "Failsafe" power distribution grid, with no less than five ways to route power to the warp nacelles in the event of catastrophic damage to the ship. It was designed with two enormous Warp nacelles composed of machinery from six Sovereign nacelles.
To power these oversized motors, the ship has a primary and secondary warp core which operate in tandem to operate all subsystems at consistently full power.
In order to move the ship at Sublight speeds, two impulse engine banks are mounted outboard from the Saucer on two large wings.
The deflector array runs as a large strip down the fore of the engineering section on a sort of "keel" extending downward, as well as a traditional circular array on the engineering section itself.
The ship is equipped with an Regenerative Ablative hull and a conventional deflector array. The ship has mounted Tetryon Cannon arrays instead of the period-typical Phaser Strips, to allow for more extensive use of Ablative armor. Notable interior elements are a distinct lack of decks in most of the Engineering section, with a large interior space devoted to fuel and Armor tanks, as well as Warp Core machinery and shuttle and Fighter hangars. The Bridge is a large open room which is connected to a sort of Promenade running the spine of the saucer and neck.

Despite its oversized Impulse engines, the ship was found to be sluggish at Sublight speeds and much of the experimental machinery frequently failed. The ship's class was never put into production, but the ship survived through the Klingon-Federation war in 2409, during which it reentered service as a science and Command Operations vessel. A second ship of similar design but smaller size was built during this time to be used as a testing platform for experimental appropriated Borg technology such as that which was used to transfigure the Narada in the late 24th century.

I'll be honest and say its not really to my taste. It smacks of being a kitbash, by which I mean it looks like a normal design that someone has stuck additional bits on that it didn't have in the first place. The huge keels and additional struts and wings make it look rather busy aesthetically, do they serve some purpose?

The keel on the secondary hull might be an interesting addition to a design, but I wouldn't make it that deep on a design this tall and long already. Its quite an elongated, swoopy design of a ship, but you've then added deep keels which work against that look. That's what makes me think of kitbashes, a design that's been reworked by someone else with a different vision. I think you may have overworked this one in ways it didn't need.

i dont mind the bottom sticky-out bit, but the ones on the lower saucer look out of place, like giant skin tags that've grown out someones armpits. also the nacelles seem to point upwards, which is a bit odd.

but otherwise i quite like it, sort of like if the enterprise had been built in the gundam universe.

Also as a minor side note, the nacelles DO slope. The reason I did this is because primarily my hand drawing rand downward an angle when I drew it, but also because the special effects shots from TOS show the Enterprise flying pitched downward, which I think looks kinda cool.

I know what you mean about how the the Enterprise had her bow plowing forward in the TOS opening. I kind of liked that too. But having the nacelles pitched back at an angle is making it look like the Sagittarius is going to flip over backwards.

NX/NCC-20110 is way to low for a late 24th century vessel, and suggests that she is from the Lost Era/around the same time as the Ambassador class.

If we are to assume that she is from around the same time as the Sovereign class, a registry somewhere from NX-738XX to NX-75XXX would be more appropriate.

The wings supporting the nacelles from the primary hull is an interesting design trait, one which I might want to play around with myself at some point. I like adding little fins to my designs here and there myself. From the front, the circular main deflector sort of gives the vessel an overall appearance reminiscent of something from the Space Battleship Yamato Universe.

I think what you need to do is find ways to better balance your design, better integrate the fins and wings into the hulls, so they don't look like they've been tacked on, but more like they flow out from the hull, and find ways to simplify and sleeken the Sagittarius. She needs to look more like she was carved out of a single shape, rather than a few shapes brought together.

http://i546.photobucket.com/albums/hh412/GalacticWeirdo/1227122247.jpg
Thanks for the feedback guys.
I'm on vacation right now, so I don't have access to a scanner, but i did make a sketch of a new version of the ship, where the saucer pylons and impulse wings merge together into one continuous shape, and various slopes have been made more similar. The front view is more or less unchanged. I personally think it does look a little more clever this way, but I still need to tweak it some for it to look really good. I really need to play around with a three dimensional version of it to see how everything is layed out. Let me know what you guys think! Especially ideas for changes!

Yeah, you're getting closer. She definitely looks better now that you've started blending the shapes into flowing lines.

If you need any inspiration before going through more passes, I'd suggest looking through John Eaves' concept art for the Enterprise-E.

And remember, unless you intend the Sagittarius to be an Ent-C era vessel, I'd suggest changing her registry somewhere between the NX/NCC-738XX (at the very least; NX-739XX would probably be better if you intend the Sagittarius to be a little after the Sovereign was commissioned) to the NCC/NX-75XXX range, which is around the registry range for most vessels contemporary to the Sovereign class.

Also as a minor side note, the nacelles DO slope. The reason I did this is because primarily my hand drawing rand downward an angle when I drew it, but also because the special effects shots from TOS show the Enterprise flying pitched downward, which I think looks kinda cool.

Click to expand...

Well, to be frank, at first glance it looks like just another fanboy fantasy. To my eyes, it seems cluttered and you've stuck on all this stuff that really... it's just a bizarre mess.

BUT, hear me out...

I think buried under all that nerny fanboy stuff is a really lovely hull and wonderful little details.

The sloping nacelles - f*king simple yet BRILLIANT. I LOVE them!

And I love the idea of the bridge module pushed forward of the center line of the saucer.

And I liked that thing dangling down in front of the secondary hull - I just dialed it back about 8 or 9.

And I'm not just saying all that. As you can see, I liked your design fundamentals SO much, that I did my own version of it and have posted it here. Sure, my take on it isn't going to match the backstory you've written for it, but I don't concern myself much with backstories and where it fits in with canon and getting the correct registry number... I'm all about design. And I've really enjoyed working on my take on this design!

Also as a minor side note, the nacelles DO slope. The reason I did this is because primarily my hand drawing rand downward an angle when I drew it, but also because the special effects shots from TOS show the Enterprise flying pitched downward, which I think looks kinda cool.

Click to expand...

Well, to be frank, at first glance it looks like just another fanboy fantasy. To my eyes, it seems cluttered and you've stuck on all this stuff that really... it's just a bizarre mess.

BUT, hear me out...

I think buried under all that nerny fanboy stuff is a really lovely hull and wonderful little details.

The sloping nacelles - f*king simple yet BRILLIANT. I LOVE them!

And I love the idea of the bridge module pushed forward of the center line of the saucer.

And I liked that thing dangling down in front of the secondary hull - I just dialed it back about 8 or 9.

And I'm not just saying all that. As you can see, I liked your design fundamentals SO much, that I did my own version of it and have posted it here. Sure, my take on it isn't going to match the backstory you've written for it, but I don't concern myself much with backstories and where it fits in with canon and getting the correct registry number... I'm all about design. And I've really enjoyed working on my take on this design!

Click to expand...

I like them both, erifah I think possibly you over simplified it a bit, but it is sleek and very Trek and I love it.. GalacticWierdo IMHO I feel it's a bit clunky. I think the clunkiness I see is coming from the dual nacelle struts. If I were to take this and work it a bit I would lose the struts on the secondary hull, and lower the saucer struts to just where the neck and secondary hull meet. I would keep the swept back angle perhaps even accentuating it more. Now this is all just my opinions not suggestions. I don't like my toes stepped on and I don't want to step on yours. Please don't change your design because of anything I said. This is your ship, your design the only person you need to make happy is yourself. I was just mind doodling as I read the thread. Seriously this has MAJOR potential keep working at it.